THE HISTORY OF BUDDHISM AMONG THE MONGOLS
Klaus Sagaster (Bonn)- Early Mongolian Contacts with Buddhism
The Mongols entered upon the stage of world history when, in 1206,
inggis Khan united the Mongolian and Turkic tribes of Northern
Mongolia to form a Mongolian state, which was soon to become
one of the greatest world empires. Concomitant with inggis Khan
the Mongolian history of Buddhism began. It is not known to what
extent the Mongols already had come into contact with Buddhism at
an earlier time.^1
Buddhism reached the Mongols from four different directions: from
the Uighurs, from the Tanguts, from Tibet and from China.
1.1. inggis Khan and Uighur Central Asian BuddhismIt is not unlikely that inggis Khan had come into contact with Uighur
Central Asian Buddhism already at an early date.^2 When in 1204 he
won over the Turkic Naiman in the west of the Mongolian tribal
territories,^3 Tatatonga (Mong. *Tatatung a), the keeper of the
seal of the Naiman king Tayang Khan, fell into the hands of the Mongols.^4
Tatatonga was no Naiman, but an Uighur, i.e., a member of the people
living to the west of the Naiman, north and south of the Tianshan ,
and which between 730 and 840 had founded a great empire in the
territory of present-day Mongolia. Later on, this group of people was
driven to the west and to the south by the Kirgiz. The Uighur were
a highly cultivated people that adhered to three religions: Buddhism,
(^1) It is dif cult to say how much the Buddhist culture of the Liao (Kitan, 907–1125)
and Jin ( Jurchen, 1115–1234) dynasties of Northern China was known to the
ancestors of the Mongols of inggis Khan’s time.
(^2) On Uighur Buddhism and its literature, see Elverskog 1997, particularly the
introduction, pp. 5–9 (“Historical Background”).
(^3) Secret History of the Mongols, § 196 (de Rachewiltz 2004, pp. 122–123). See also
Franke 1948, pp. 264–265.
(^4) Franke 1948, p. 276; Delger 1989, p. 12; Kara 2005, p. 25.